Tracks out of sync multitrack

Jb6767

When I import single tracks from my daw (ableton) it seems the tracks are a little off time.
I use 4tracks click , bass, drums and keys /misc.
if I bring them all in at once it’s good. I want to be able to mute bass or drums when live player is there
Thanks

peter

You mean they get out of sync when you mute/unmute them? What is your exact setup? Do you use an audio interface? Master/Aux routing? Combined Headphone/USB active? Which file format are you using?

Jb6767

Hi , Thanks for the response ,I was bringing them over from ableton and I think it was a file setup
But I am having the 44.1 -48.kHz issue when I am using multitrack option. The tracks are swelling and glitching.
I am sending from ableton and have the daw set to 44.1 now . I saw initially it was 48
But it’s still doing it ,
I know it’s a setting issue or something similar but I just can’t figure it out yet
Initially most of the tracks are from song galaxy multi tracker and I bring them into ableton and then send to stage traxx

Jb6767

I noticed after I read another post that the 44.kHz Setting was greyed out in exporting audio in ableton.
After checking a few things I saw I had some settings at the 48 kHz.and changed them also.
Not sure why but it’s still behaving like 48 k with dropouts and swelling.

peter

Which version of Stage Traxx are you running? The 48kHz problem has been fixed in version 3.4.6.

Jb6767

Hmmm version 3.4.7(7145)
Not that then? It only happens when using multi tracks option.
I use an iPad 14.7.1
6th gen

peter

OK what about my other questions above?

1) Do you use an audio interface? What sample rate does it run?
2) Do you route tracks to different outputs?
3) Combined Headphone/USB active?
4) Which file format are you using (mp3 / wav / ...)?

Jb6767

1) Yes I use them to play audio and it supports 44.1
2)I Use a standard 1/8”stereo to double 1/4” out of iPad. I pan click left channel and all the rest right . I send the left channel click to headphones for live drummer to use and blend with right Channel if they want. Right goes to do box and to main house
3)right now I’ve only been using headphone out and haven’t used the USB out (auxiliary) yet
4)wav and tried mp3 also

peter

So the problem happens without an audio interface. Could you try to increase the buffer size to maximum in playback settings?

If that does not help. Please send me the multitrack files for a single song that causes this problem to support@stagetraxx.com. I will then try to reproduce the issue on my end.

Jb6767

Thanks. I used the largest buffer size and it worked .
.I am using waves

peter

You could try a compressed audio format. If increasing the buffer size helped, that means the iPad needs more time to process data. That could mean that the large wav files take too long to load. With a compressed file format it might be faster to load chunks from the audio files. The processing overhead for decompressing the audio file might be less than the actual loading times of wave files.

Jb6767

Thank you for the amazing Support. This is why your app is slowly becoming the standard for backing tracks. I was still getting pops and clicks with the increased buffer so this may work.

peter

I am not sure this will work. I was playing around with it and managed once to get crackles during multitrack playback today. And that was with mp3 files and regardless of selected buffer size. So I don't think my last recommendation will be successful.

The problem disappeared after closing the app in the task switcher. After that I did not manage to produce the crackles again.

I will do a code review of the audio part that might cause this crackles but without a way to consistently reproduce the crackles I don't know if I can pin it down at the moment.

DickyDutch

I have also experienced occasional out of sync problems whilst creating new multi track songs but have found that a solution is to close and reopen STAGETRAXX then everything seem ok

peter

So I did a thorough code review and have found one area where the sample format for tracks routed to the auxiliary bus would be wrong for tracks not with 44.1k sample rate. That could definitely cause these crackling issues. I'm not sure if this will fix this issue but as I already have a couple of fixes lined up, I will release this as version 3.4.8 in the next few days.

Jb6767

Yes it’s hit and miss. I am getting tracks sticking in multi track now and when I mute and unmute t works. I am routing all my tracks to headphone out

peter

Muting / Unmuting a track just changes the volume to 0. That should have absolutely no effect on crackling.

You are running iOS14.7.1. iOS14.5 and 14.6 had known issues with audio crackling. It should have been fixed in version 14.7 but maybe there is still a bit of the issue left. Would you be willing to update to 15.1?

Jb6767

Just did. Thanks. I’ll let you know

Jb6767

Sorry I just read my previous note. I meant certain multi tracks (1-6)were not playing until I muted and un-muted.
Hopefully the 15.1 helps. Either way you are almost there .

peter

I have now spent quite some time on this and finally I can reproduce this issue. It happens nearly every time I crossfade between 2 multitrack songs with 6 tracks wav files each and where the second song has a sample rate of 48kHz. Once the problems start they occur every time I play a 48kHz multitrack song. They disappear if I close and restart the app via the task switcher.

I have tried lots of approaches to get rid of this issue but nothing seems to work out. I guess this must be a bug in the Apple audio framework. I will try to write some simple test code and send it with a bug report to Apple.

The audio engine in Stage Traxx runs with a fixed 44.1kHz sample rate and as far as I can tell this issue only happens for songs that have audio files running with another samplerate than 44.1kHz. So my suggestion is that especially when running multitrack songs, make sure that your audio files only use a sample rate of 44.1kHz. I will also add this hint to the manual.